Specifically, Who Were the Puritans? What Were Their Names?

John Piper

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including A Peculiar Glory.

John Piper

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including A Peculiar Glory.

You may have heard people vilify or extol the Puritans. J. I. Packer is among those who extol. Indeed, he thinks that this century of pastors was the greatest the church has ever known.

Some of us have found our souls richly fed by these 350-year old pastors. When we have needed spiritual food, we have found ourselves grazing in the Bible-saturated, heart-searching seventeenth century Puritans.

If you have ever wondered just who they were, here is Packer’s description and list:

[The Puritans are] a type of evangelical believer that emerged in the Church of England in the sixteenth century and reached its high peak of development in the seventeenth century in men like Richard Baxter, John Owen, Richard Sibbes, John Flavel, Thomas Brooks, Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson, Robert Traill, William Bridge, Thomas Goodwin, Stephen Charnock, Jeremiah Burroughs, John Bunyan, William Gurnall, and others of similar outlook. (J. I. Packer, Faithfulness and Holiness, 14)

If you would like to graze in this pasture yourself, here are some worthy books where you can start: